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I pulled the trigger and chopped my hair! To make things scarier, it was by a new stylist!! There is a nice salon five minutes from my house, so it just seemed to be a good fit rather than take half a day off work to driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.

I went in for a consult last week, and went in to get it chopped days later by Eddy. Better pictures coming soon. I'm still learning how to do it.

We're getting closer to our next race, and Ben is still doing great with his training! Rykar and I stop and give him water along the way...

I'm fairly certain that Ben still has a broken big toe (back from March) and its caused some new grief this weekend, so he finally got it xrayed yesterday. TBC...

Also, on Monday I ran!! I did two miles running with plenty of walk breaks (every .1) that took one hour and two minutes. :D I'm hoping it is a start to my comeback. I'm still hoping to run the 1/2 of a 1/2 Vegas. I have hope. I will try another run/walk combo on Halloween!

Being injured blows.

I told Rykar (below) to stay on the path, so he would leave one paw on the concrete at all times. He's such an adorable little smart-aleck. He used to do the same thing when he wasn't allowed on the love sac.

Moving right along...

We've never done anything fancy for Halloween. In 2009 we almost went to the Adventuredome at Circus Circus with some friends, but other than that attempt... we're basically lame as.

This year we decided to change that and go to "Phoenix's Zombie Walk." Ben loves Walking Dead and this was a parade of thousands of zombies downtown, Walking Dead style.

Right here (below) we were walking down the street and the big church on the corner was playing its bells, which are really loud. It was actually perfect for the creepy zombie mood going on.

We ate at Canes Chicken and scared the children there.

I think I look to be a scarier zombie when I'm smiling. Frightening. But this was a Mormon missionary zombie (he was an actual Mormon too!). I asked for a picture and and as we posed he joked, "this is my second wife." haha! He had tire tracks all over him. Clever.

Ben was a waaaaay better zombie than me. He looked so good. That blood stains so I chickened out in the facial region. I did get out my mom's crimper from the 80s to make my hair a mess.

There were bazillions of amazing zombies. I can only imagine the prep time some of them required. Next year we know what we're up against.

Last weekend was the Halloween 1/2 my sister, brother and Greg ran up in Provo, Utah. All three PR'd. Jolie and Greg ran 1:49s and James ran a 1:32! That's pretty awesome. I guess it beats my 2 miler on Monday. :]

Have a Happy Halloween!

We aren't doing anything extraordinary but handing out candy if we get any trick or treaters. It is on a Thursday after all, and our only child is a four legged beast who hates his costume, and isn't allowed candy.

But he thinks he can do whatever he wants. Like move his bedroom into the hallway.

This weekend we went to visit my mother in law in the White Mountains, about a three hour drive. Ben and Joe did some work around the property, and the girls and I hung out with my pup and Minda's three cute and crazy Chihuahuas.

When we left Phoenix, there were loads of hot air balloons out.

It's a colder climate in the woods so it called for a sweater. This dog breed is often found completely dressed from head to toe because they are so skinny. Like, doggy snowsuits, doggy turtlenecks and even jeans. I'm serious. Check out IG #italiangreyhound if you want to see for yourself, the cuteness.

Chihuahuas definitely have attitude [and pipes]. Two of them (including the 2 lb-er below, Tashi) kept growling and barking at Rykar who could care less. I forget how mellow and quiet my pup is. :] Ragan sure loved the little Tashi.

These girls were terrified of all puppies until spring time when their parents cured their fear by getting one of their own.

Now they LOVE them.

Meanwhile Ben and Joe workin' hard...

On the way home you drive through the mountains with a lot of elk warnings and elk crossings. It was dark and I was nervous because we saw one as road kill, and they are giant. 30 minutes later we blew past a huge one standing on the shoulder of the road. Yeah, we slowed down after that. Creepy.

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In other news, I'm in a hair slump.

I'm ready to take the plunge of chopping it into something with more personality. Ben LOVES the Posh bob, so he is quite fond of the idea.

2-1/2 years ago I had it cut like it is below. I loved it, but it grows so fast and then I moved to Arizona and needed the summer pony tail [and a new hairstylist to trust].

I'm thinking of the same cut with some stacked layers on top. I'm afraid of layers. They add body, but they also add a go-every-way-but-the-way-you-want, aspect to fine hair.

We shall see.

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I have been avoiding running related things for awhile, but this weekend I found myself glued to recaps of the Runner's World 1/2 weekend! It looked amazing.

One week until I get to test out the left leg. It has been a very long 4+ weeks, and I feel like all my hard work is gone. Before getting into that frame of mind, my focus is to get back to being pain free! Then we'll go from there.

We still have a race in four weeks for our anniversary celebration. It's going to happen! Even if I have to downgrade my distance and run/walk it.

My brother, sister and our friend, Greg, are all running the Halloween 1/2 this upcoming weekend, in Provo. It is a fast course so I am hoping to see three shiny new PRs!

Have a great week!! 10 days until Halloween [and 11 until I start blaring my Christmas music].

My wonderful ma came to town. I took the afternoons off working and we'd pick an exploration of sorts and just go for it. The timing was pretty perfect with the weather, and on top of that, I am working through my leg injury and still am not able to run, so my mind was busy not thinking running this week (for once).

We hiked Squaw Peak. It was her hottest AZ visit day, like in the 90s, so why not go bake on the rocky mountainside while exerting ourselves in the hot sunshine. I'm an awesome planner. :)

I've mentioned Squaw Peak is like going up 1.25 miles of bleachers. This pic (below) depicts that a bit.

Garmin elevation for the Summit Trail:

I can see Ben's office from up here.

I took my mom to a bunch of fun malls around the valley, including the creepiest of creeper malls on the planet.

I dared my mom to play chicken with the fountains.

I will let you be the judge as to which mall the pics (below) came from. Maybe it's normal to shop for caskets at the mall...?...?...?

We found this amazingly inexpensive and slightly hidden store at Desert Ridge called Xi. We have no idea how to pronounce it so we call it "chee" or "ex-ee" and "ex-eye." :P We decided to scout out another of its locations, and that's what lead us to the casket-mall.

I'm a little bothered I didn't know about Ex-eye before now, as we just moved from Desert Ridge. It's priced like Forever 21 but better quality and less teeny bopper (I love F21, don't get me wrong, I will shop there all day long).

We spent one afternoon going through some model homes which is always so much fun. I took my mom to our favorite builder around here, Pulte. She loved. I will not grace you with millions of model home picture fun, though.

It was cold this day so it called for hot chocolate.

One day we had lunch with mister Ben before heading downtown Phoenix to check out the State Capitol. I LOVE any city, so this was fun to explore a little bit.

So, funny story: I typed the State Capitol's address into my GPS and it took us to this building below. "Oh. Well it's sort of really lame." We photographed it anyways.

We went inside and through the museum and eventually came out the "back doors" to discover that we had parked and taken pictures at the boring actual back side of the building. So it is pretty cool after all.

The Capitol no longer houses the legislature because it's way too small. It's quite a bit smaller than Utah's Capitol, but also older (1900). They have turned it into a free museum!

"Get along!"

My mom's last night here we went out to Kierland Commons to Greenehouse, a restaurant that shares a kitchen with North (from last week). It was so delicious.

Most of our pics from the night ended up fuzzy so I'm not bothering to post. But I wish I had a back view of this shirt I'm wearing because I'm obsessed with it. (Bought at Ex-eye.)

My hunk!

It is always a lot of fun when my mom comes to visit. Even though I still worked some, it kind of felt like a vacation week for me too. Thanks for the visit mom. We miss you already!

Including this guy. (He kept wandering into your bedroom after you left.)